Blitz the future of chess?

Do you think that blitz is the future of chess? Or do you think that classical chess is going to hang around?

Let us know your opinion below!

~ Luke

Blitz and bullet chess may be the future for online chess, but the high quality of games played at Tata Steel and other world-class tournaments show that classical chess is alive and well.

Time controls may get shorter, I don't think blitz will be the answer though.

It's a proven fact that you can't improve drastically unless you play longer time controls. Certainly blitz offers a broader appeal to those for whom chess is just a hobby. But will OTB die out? It is possible, as people might make a change to online correspondence or longer time controls. But there will be many who insist that OTB is the way to go, especially with all the computers out there. 

pretty much what everyone has said. I'll add this, those that join online sites before real clubs and play mostly blitz are going to pick up a lot of bad habits that they will never shed. Thus, they will never reach their full potential at chess.

So I heard this a few times now, what exactly happens at a chess club that prevents this?

I've only been to one as a kid and only 4 or 5 times, and all we did back then was solve puzzles and play games.

I'm genuinely curious, like who decides what people are going to study etc. or is it all uncoordinated and depending on own initiative?



OT, yes I think shorter time controls is the future for chess.

Blitz is only chess lite, although at the highest level you can see some reasonable games really its just a dumbed down version of the real thing. It may be that for marketing purposes to attract a different audience there will be more short time control tournaments (The once mighty Aeroflot Open is now reduced to a Rapid Event for example) but its really pandering to the ADD crowd who don't care about chess as such but like to see a lot of action..Like I bet there are a load of complaints about all the games at Wijk Aan Zee being drawn today in the top group, well tough, those games were all mostly hard fought and a draw was the right result, deal with it.

Obviously it depends on the club. Some might be very regimented, others are just people grabbing a seat at a board. But I think the main point is that clubs tend toward longer games, whereas the more popular form of online chess is blitz where you can get away with some sloppy moves.

Players such as LittlePeasant, a Costa Rican GM who visits this site occasionally, became strong players because they could play online. There was no indigineous chess culture they could turn to. We are living in a great age for chess players (and indeed, learning any skill). Players such as LittlePeasant, Hikaru Nakamura, and countless other young titled players all got that way because of online chess. And yeah, they all played tons of blitz and bullet.

Aww-Rats is right that nobody will reach GM level with a pure diet of blitz chess. But it's not the evil that players who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s (myself included) once thought.

I think this comment was made by LittlePeasant and it refers to chess as a spectical. I think people do actually go and watch the Chess World Championship but I wouldn't. I don't really want to sit around watching two players play for a couple of hours however good they are. Afterwards I may spend 10 minutes looking at the game but I don't want to spend hours on it.

I think a lot of people have hopes that one day chess can become a TV sport but a large audience will never want to watch a long game. Maybe though a TV show could work with blitz chess.